The Hounds and the Fury - Rita Mae Brown

Brown outdoes herself in this fifth thrilling mystery of murder and splendor in Virginia fox hunting country--the first to focus on the beloved hounds. nCritics and fans alike are wild about Rita Mae Brown's richly imagined and utterly engaging foxhunting mysteries-and this latest novel promises more thrilling hunts, breathtaking vistas, and an all-new sinister scandal. n Millions of dollars seem to be missing after a long-overdue audit of the local aluminum plant reveals a major accounting discrepancy.

Company president Garvey Stokes finds himself at a loss-in more ways than one. He turns to his sharp-tongued, ornery bookkeeper, Iphigenia Iffy Demetrios, for an explanation, but she's no help. Yet when the fuzzy math suddenly includes a body count, the figures can no longer be ignored.

n n While the town sheriff tries to get to the bottom of the matter, leave it to Sister Jane Arnold, venerable master of the Jefferson Hunt Club, to rely on her keen horse-and-hound sense to follow the trail of murder and cover-up. Throwing her off the scent, however, is former hunt club donor and all-around cad Crawford Howard, who thinks he can go toe-to-toe with the beloved septuagenarian and outclass her club by grossly sidestepping hound- and-hunt etiquette. Against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a menagerie of friends, foes, and fresh new faces saddle up for the breakneck ride to unravel the conspiracy.

Even the furry denizens in the fields and boroughs have a thing or two to say about these peculiar humans. n n Incomparable author Rita Mae Brown returns to the glorious hills of Virginia and its genteel foxhunting society, where how much money you have in the bank is not nearly as important as how long your family has lived on the land-and where nearly everyone has something to hide. As Sister muses, The little secrets leak out.

The big ones, well, some escape like evils from Pandora's box. And others we'll never know.n